Almost a week ago I posted an entry about two Google Adwords ads where the only difference between them was a single comma. This resulted in a CTR (Click Through Ratio) of 4.1% versus 4.4% and saved the advertiser $500 a year!

What I didn’t do though was tell you which ad performed better because I wanted to show you that it’s sometimes very hard to tell which ad will perform better. In this particular case, it was the second ad with the extra comma that outperformed the other ad.

Ad 2:

How to Write a Book, Fast
14 Days from Start to Finish
Unique, Step By Step Program
Write-A-Book-Faster.com

A small difference can sometimes have a significant impact!

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Yesterday I received my regular email newsletter from Perry Marshall in which he had a very interesting example of the power your ad copy and split testing can have on your bottom line. In it he showed two examples of a very similar Google Adwords ad he ran:

Ad 1:

How to Write a Book Fast
14 Days from Start to Finish
Unique, Step By Step Program
Write-A-Book-Faster.com

Ad 2:

How to Write a Book, Fast
14 Days from Start to Finish
Unique, Step By Step Program
Write-A-Book-Faster.com

First, can you notice the difference? It’s very subtle and the only clue I’ll give you is the headline of this blog entry.

Knowing this, how much of a click through ratio difference do you think it is? Obviously it’s significant enough for me to write about, and Perry too. He calculates this small difference alone has saved him $500 year on advertising. The difference in the ads is a CTR of 4.1% versus 4.4%! That comma is responsible for 0.3% of the total CTR, or $500 of the total yearly expenses.

Now here’s the big question. Which ad do you think had the higher CTR? I’m not going to state it today to bring home a point we really tried to push during the seminar, TEST TEST TEST!!! That is to say, without testing you don’t really know, you need to try and test the different options.

Although I’m not stating yet which ad was more effective, let’s see how good you are at guessing. Which ad do YOU think performed better?

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